by TR Kohler
“No, really-”
“Come on,” Kidman inserts, “nobody likes to eat alone. Besides, afterward you can tell me what brings you out here after all this time.”
Chapter Ten
“Anika Purna.”
It is clear by the way Kari Ma puts the two words out there that they are supposed to have some level of significance. Some deeper meaning that is intended to make Kidman sit up and pay attention.
Even if they register in no way within him.
“Person, place, or thing?” he asks, so uncertain of the terms he doesn’t even know where to begin.
Seated on the end of the rattan sofa beside him, Ma holds a saucer in one hand, the handle of her teacup in the other. The last remaining pieces of a set he picked up in China years before, the others having lost the ongoing battle with time and frequent moves.
The closing course of a breakfast of eggs and fruit shared in the neighboring dining room earlier. A quick meal that allowed them to get through the requisite catching up before moving on to the matter at hand.
Whatever the name just given to him may prove to be.
“Person,” Ma replies.
Grunting softly, Kidman considers this a moment. Out of pure habit, his hand reaches for Ali’i, fingers finding the soft fur between her ears.
“Person person, or one-of-us person?”
“One of us,” Ma replies. “A healer, I’m told.”
“You’re told?” Kidman asks, aware that he seems to be simply repeating her. A series of questions that stem from whatever her most recent response was.
A string not by design, but not without merit.
Something she appears to notice, keeping any flash of annoyance from her features.
“Yes,” Ma answers. Her mouth opens to reply, seemingly about to launch into the rest of the answer, before she pulls up. An abrupt and calculated stoppage indicating she doesn’t like the direction of the conversation.
A move Kidman has seen her employ countless times over the years.
“But we’re getting too far out ahead of ourselves. Let me go back to the beginning, take it forward from there.”
One hand still working at the loose skin atop Ali’i’s head, Kidman uses the other to lift his tea glass. A mismatched piece of glassware that he upends in one swift movement, letting the remainder of the sugary beverage slide to the back his throat.
Its contents emptied, he places it on the end table beside him.
A move to give her his complete attention, something telling him she didn’t track him to the windward coast of Molokai merely to check out his knife collection or partake in his cooking.
Flicking a finger back toward himself is his only movement thereafter. A quick motion, signaling for her to begin.
“As I’m sure you remember, the group we worked for all those years ago was a black project hidden deep within the Defense Department.
“A joint effort that operated out of CIA’s Camp Peary.”
“Right,” Kidman replies. “The Farm.”
“Exactly,” Ma replies. “A project based at The Farm, but with special oversight from President Jefferson Pruitt himself.”
Despite it having been nearly thirty years since the group’s inception, Kidman remembers it plenty well.
A turning point in his life. The precipitating event that brought him into contact with Ma. With Doc and the others.
Was the first time it was ever intimated that his abilities were something that could be utilized, rather than just hidden from the world.
“Well, as you may or may not know, his son was recently elected to become the next president. And he has interest in seeing it revived.”
His fingers tightening slightly on Ali’i’s neck, Kidman grunts softly. “And by interest, you mean...?”
“I mean, yesterday was my last day in D.C. As of right now I work out of Arizona, running a new iteration of the program.”
The first couple of times after the team disbanded twenty years prior, Kidman expected a conversation like this. A visit from Ma or Doc or even some bureaucrat out to track him down, convince him to perform one more job.
One last person needing to be saved. One last bomb needing to be disabled.
One final whatever, the punchline always changing, the general gist remaining the same.
An assumption that time proved incorrect. Years that slid by and visits that occurred without mention of going back to work. Even the impromptu reunion at Coop’s reception.
Distance enough that he had assumed such a day was never coming.
Surprising, though not shocking given how their last outing went. An incident in Yangon that saw them lose a member, the rest of them just barely escaping.
None more so than Kidman, enormous chunks of it still lost from his memory.
“And when you say new iteration...?”
“I mean, kind of like last time, but different,” Ma replies. Seeming to have expected the question, she adds, “People like us, but a lot more autonomy. Less paramilitary attack dogs, more outreach and recruiting.”
“Who’s in charge?” he asks.
“I run the operations,” she replies. “Doc is overseeing the facilities and training.”
Feeling his eyebrows rise, Kidman lifts his hand from Ali’i’s neck. Slapping both palms down atop his thighs, he pushes himself to a standing position. Crossing the bare hardwood floor, he comes to a stop in front of the picture window staring out toward the ocean.
The same path he and Ali’i ascended barely an hour earlier, his paddleboard docked not thirty yards from where he stands.
“Is that what this is?” he asks. “Recruiting?”
Behind him, he can hear as Ma places her saucer down. A slight rattle of the dishes before replying, “No, this is a favor.”
An admission Kidman was not expecting, he pulls his gaze from the gentle splash of the waves arriving nearby. Rotating in place, he turns to regard Ma, the woman still rooted on the end of the couch.
“Two of them, actually,” she says. “One that was asked of me. Another I’m now asking of you.”
Chapter Eleven
Much like their last interaction, there was no definitive closing made by the time Kari Ma finished her beverage. No immediate answer to the request she was there to make. No promises of getting together again soon for dinner and drinks.
Not the slightest hint from either about such a thing, both knowing better than to make promises they had no way of knowing if they could keep.
Maybe twenty years ago, but not now.
Not after so much having transpired.
Having deposited the information she was there to deliver, Kari merely stood and thanked him for his time. She told him he had a lovely home with a beautiful view and scratched Ali’i behind the ears before returning to the car waiting for her in front of the house.
From there, it was a twenty-minute drive to the airport in Ho’olehua before climbing back onto her private jet.
The same private jet she sits on now five hours later as it begins its descent into Arizona.
Miles from the closest airport, the only thing to demarcate their intended landing site from the surrounding desert is a narrow strip of brushed sand. A lane no wider than a couple dozen yards stretched to a half mile or so in length.
Lining it are a handful of blinking red lights, just barely visible against the russet hue of the ground on which they stand.
An impromptu airstrip for the Gulfstream afforded her upon the reintroduction of The Ranch. A remainder craft from one of the alphabet agencies she was glad to accept, especially in the infancy stages when getting back and forth to make possible site inspections.
Later, when out on recruiting runs.
A task she hopes has only just started.
Carved out alongside the cluster of buildings comprising the main of the miniature campus, the airstrip is close enough to send a small herd of dark shapes scrambling as it touches down.
No doubt se
nds a plume of red dust into the air behind it as well.
Seated in one of four captain’s chairs comprising the front part of the cabin, Kari sits with her legs extended straight before her. Both aching from spending the better part of the last day folded up in the rear of the plane, she flexes them one at a time.
In order, both sound out with wicked pops. Snaps that seem to grow louder with each passing year.
Noises she is beyond giving much worry to, the injuries they underscore ones that were well worth incurring.
Days like today making such a fact all the more obvious.
Perched on the front edge of her seat, Kari waits until the plane rolls to a complete stop and the lone stewardess onboard lowers the stairwell before rising.
“Your bags will be taken to the house directly,” the young woman says, standing off to the side as Kari begins to pass. “Have a good day.”
“Thank you,” Kari mumbles in reply. “You as well.”
Final words before stepping out of the cabin and onto the metal stairwell descending before her. Stairs imbedded directly into the door, the body of the craft standing no more than eight feet above the ground.
Below her, the color is somehow even darker than it had appeared from the air. A mix of sand and dirt and red clay that has baked for centuries under the omnipresent Arizona sun.
Eighteen months prior, when then-Senator Wilson Pruitt had asked for a private meeting to share his plans to run for president and to ask her opinion about restarting the former program that she and Kidman and Doc were all once a part of, her initial reaction was to balk. Fast approaching her sixtieth year – the last twenty of which were spent fighting bureaucracy in D.C. – the very last thing she wanted was to revisit past battles.
Jurisdictional pissing matches between them and the Agency heads overseeing Camp Peary.
A disinterest she had relayed to him. Concerns assuaged without a moment’s pause, giving her free hand to make whatever changes she wanted.
The very first of those being to get nearly as far away from the nation’s capital as she could.
A search that took her to more than a dozen states, eventually landing on the small cattle ranch currently stretched out before her. A place with a recently deceased owner and no known heirs, about to be seized by the local bank. An operation that could be gotten cheap and came with the added cover story of being fully functional, a slate of facilities and employees already on hand.
The first in several key decisions that broke the right way, nudging Kari into opting to take over the fledgling operation.
A choice that is still much too early to know if it was correct, her meeting with Pruitt giving her pause.
Her encounter with Kidman offsetting it with an equal amount of hope.
Cane held tight in her left hand, Kari grips the railing on the stairwell with her right. Focus aimed down at the inset stairs, she takes them one at a time, feeling the tightening in her knee and along the length of the metal rod in her thigh with each step.
Aches that grow more pronounced with each passing year.
Constant reminders as to why she is now overseeing The Ranch instead of still being out in the fray.
“How’s the wheel?” the same familiar voice she heard while standing in the terminal at Washington Dulles asks. A question she doesn’t bother replying to, keeping her focus on the last part of her descent.
Not until both feet and the tip of her cane draw pay dirt does she look up to find Doc waiting for her. Feet planted just off the edge of the runway, he waits with arms folded over his enormous chest. Bowling balls for biceps, deltoids, and pectorals, resting atop a midsection that in recent years has ballooned in kind.
Well over three hundred pounds of man crammed into a size XXXL sweatshirt and gym shorts.
A clothing choice that is more function than form, the garment much too hot, there to hide the series of scars tracing across his arms and torso. Battle wounds earned over decades of service, first in the program, later taking on work in the private sector.
Three years younger than Ma, his age puts him in his late fifties, though his appearance suggests otherwise. Blessed with good genetics beyond just the gift of incredible strength, his mocha-colored skin is free from lines or blemishes. His scalp is shaved clean, showing no incoming stubble to hint at male pattern baldness.
“You’ve been busy,” Kari says as she crosses the makeshift tarmac toward Doc. Gaze fixed on the array of buildings around them, she takes in the new construction that has occurred since her last visit.
Projects that were already underway that have now reached completion.
Others that had not yet broken ground which are almost finished.
A full sweep that ends back where it started, focus landing on the man before her. The one with a quizzical look on his face, held to make sure she sees it.
A conscious effort to let it be known he saw what she did there, bypassing his question.
Just as the glare she returns is response for him to let it be.
“We have,” Doc eventually replies. “How was the trip?”
“Good.”
“And The Kid?”
To that, Kari can’t help but smile. A bit of levity that pushes away the brief flare of tension a moment before.
“Come on, give me a tour of what you’ve been up to.”
Chapter Twelve
A great deal of progress was readily apparent upon Kari Ma’s descent into The Ranch. New construction that has taken place since her last visit. Land cleared and prepped for future development.
Even the airstrip they touched down on, it being much more convenient than flying into the closest commercial airport and driving hours across the desert thereafter.
A vast number of things added to the original structures that have been present for decades. Barns and corrals for horses. Feed stations for the thousands of black angus and brown baldies roaming the countryside. Assorted buildings and outposts housing everything from tractors to ranch hands.
Items useful both in form and function, maintaining the pretense of the place being a working cattle ranch and providing window dressing for the secondary purpose the site is just beginning to undertake.
A purpose that seems to have taken a huge step forward in the form of the new centerpiece for the spread. A massive farmhouse replete with offices and living quarters for Kari and Doc. A cafeteria-style kitchen and serving area for both farm employees and program recruits.
To say nothing of the sprawling facilities tucked away underground, everything from dorm facilities to lecture halls to weapons bunkers all tucked well below the desert floor.
Everything masked in the form of a structure designed to look like something sprung directly from the Arizona sand.
A pretense cast aside once someone passes through the outer doors, immediately stepping into a facility far surpassing many that Kari was working from in D.C. just days before.
Same for the training facility located less than a hundred yards behind it, the newest addition to the spread. Much like the farmhouse, it is designed to resemble nothing more than additional barn space. Room for more cattle or equipment or whatever else such a place might need.
All of it perfectly matching with the greater motif, right down to the faded color of paint and the pitch of the steepled roof.
Details that have Doc practically beaming as he shows her around. An outward display rivaling any of the tour guides Kari so often saw leading people around the National Mall or across the White House grounds.
“The rest of the equipment arrived last week,” Doc says, pushing open a sliding barn door resting on a pair of steel rollers. A task he manages with barely a flick of the wrist, the door sliding to the side as if weighing nothing at all.
Same as the railroad car Kari once saw him lift without strain in the name of protecting a young child.
“Ropes, a climbing apparatus,” Doc explains as they pass from the bright Arizona sun into the shade of the b
arn. A swap that allows for a temperature drop of more than a dozen degrees.
A difference that seems to be lost on the five young trainees currently at work inside the facility. Each one sweating profusely, they look to be in a state of profound pain.
Physical discomfort Doc is oblivious to as he gestures around the cavernous structure as they move forward across the hardened rubber membrane covering the floor.
“Functional training,” Doc says, pointing to the series of rigs fastened to the ceiling above. An intricate system that looks like a cross between a circus trapeze and a monkey enclosure at the zoo.
The sort of thing Kari has never even heard of before, much less seen.
The type of display she and the others would have openly scoffed at when they were the ones being put through their paces.
“Strength,” Doc says, gesturing to a caged enclosure comprising the entire right wall of the facility. An area she knows he took extreme pride in creating from the ground up, one of the few requests he made before signing on.
A personal sanctuary she is sure he has already christened many times over.
“Cardio,” he scoffs, pointing toward the rear of the barn. An area less than half that of the weight training area, the man’s thoughts on such things made plainly apparent.
“With enough open space in between for whatever we may need, be it hand-to-hand, small weapons, or even just calisthenics,” he concludes.
Following his outstretched finger to each of the various stations, Kari lands on the handful of trainees currently at work in the center space. Five individuals ranging from fourteen to seventeen years in age.
Three males and two females, the first wave of her recruiting efforts, representing three different locations. Map dots from around the country.
People that were sold by her original pitch and convinced to relocate to The Ranch, all very much looking to be regretting their decision as they pad back and forth across the interior space. Laps interspersed with bursts of jumping rope.
Basic exercises meant to develop a baseline. Required strength and stamina before really starting to get into the meat of their training.